


this won't hurt more than a pinch

by Legendaerie



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:02:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 17,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of fics from Tumblr, primarily one shots and ask memes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dec 23, 2015 (Imagineagentyork: Locked out)

**Author's Note:**

> Will add specific warnings/ships on each chapter. Have fun!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off a post: Imagine hungover York forgetting the combination to his locker. As the other Freelancers roll in, he tries to play it cool and hope no one notices. They do.
> 
> (Mildly Yorkalina)

“000…3.”

He jerks on the door feebly; it clatters sullenly and stays closed. York blinks - he’s so dehydrated he imagines he can hear the movement across his dry, bloodshot eyes - and tries the combination again.

“0004.”

No luck. Again. He can hear someone coming down the hall; immediately, he spins and rests his back against the cold metal lockers, feigning a relaxed yawn and then stifling a genuine one. It was a really late night that had slipped into a really early morning, and it had seemed worth it at the time but now he can’t think enough to remember how the _fuck_ to get into his locker.

It’s North and Washington, the former of which gives him a polite nod before opening his own locker and getting out his armor. York is tempted to strike up a conversation, but is a little concerned he might not actually be able to speak English.

“Morning,” he croaks, after a few long seconds of checking and double checking his vocabulary. North pauses in the middle of zipping himself into the undersuit.

“… You’re locked out of your locker again, aren’t you?”

“No,” York assures him, loudly and completely unconvincingly. “I just… don’t feel like sparring in armor today.”

“Aren’t you supposed to do lockdown paint with South in an hour?” North asks, with the voice of someone who doesn’t need to ask because they know.

York rubs the bridge of his nose. He’d forgotten about that, too. “I have a high pain tolerance,” he fudges, which. Well, it’s not a lie, it’s just– he has a situationally high pain tolerance. Like in the middle of a mission when he has his healing unit, or in the bedroom. Getting shot by South is not one of those situations.

Wash, stepping into a boot, pivots and ends up falling against the lockers. “What?” he asks, baffled. “Can’t you just… pick it?”

“Oh yes. Let me just get my lock-picking gear out of my locker, so I can pick my locker open.” This is not the first time this has happened, and usually he likes to think of himself as someone who learns from his mistakes. But he hadn’t intended on a tequila-induced migraine reducing him to constantly second-guessing his own speech.

The door swings open again; Carolina strides in smoothly, already in full armor. Wash jumps to attention, which isn’t nearly as effective when he’s half-dressed, and North pauses in putting on his helmet to watch her. York means to give her a winning, ‘I was a responsible adult last night’ smile and prop his foot up on the bench, but misjudges the distance and stumbles awkwardly, scooting the bench across the locker floor with an angry squawk.

Her helmet swings his way smooth, then her shoulders lower in a resigned sigh. “Move,” she gestures, waving her hand - York steps away from his locker and watches with no small relief as she types in his combination with lightning speed. 

“You’re the best,” he sighs, pulling out his undersuit and slowly, carefully, easing himself into it. 

“Yes, I am. And don’t let it happen again.” Thus finished, Carolina hands him a bottle of painkillers and heads back out the door again. “Don’t let South beat you down too many spots, York.”

He swallows two pills dry before reaching around his back and hauling up the zipper to his undersuit.  Later, he’ll remember that he set it to his birth year and wonder, only briefly, how she knows and get shot in the face with paint for his distraction. And even with his armor, he still ends up rather bruised.


	2. Dec 30th, 2015 (Fire, flames, or excessive heat - Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on a prompt by zealtime.
> 
> (I have. no memory of writing this. None.)

York is lying, starfish-esque, a few feet away when he breaks the silence. Or at least she assumes he is. She doesn’t really have the will to turn and check. “They always said space was supposed to be cold.”

“We’re not in space right now,” Carolina replies, and swears her breath fogs up the inside of her helmet.  South had already passed out in the shade of the concrete lean-to that’s acting as their rendezvous point; they’re at the end of a long, long mission in a sweltering desert climate and even through their suits they can still feel the heat. It won’t harm them, but it does make everything feel heavy and slow.

And apparently York feels the need to talk constantly to stay awake.

“Technically, aren’t we always in space?” he asks, smug and chipper and she wishes she had the energy to turn and glare at him.

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

He pauses at that. She imagines him going stiff, maybe sitting up. Her eyes have slid closed and she just does not care enough to open them. “You wouldn’t,” he replies, but he sounds a little less than sure.

“Still have your healing unit with you?” she prompts, casual with just an edge of dangerous promise.

“Should I stop talking?

Reflex says to reply yes. They have a long standing tradition of snarking at each other, and it’s a comforting habit.  But in reality, she doesn’t mind his chatter. It helps keep her awake as well. It wouldn’t do for the entire team to pass out before Four-Seven picks them up.

So instead she relents. "Can you say things that aren’t annoying as hell?”

“Mmmm, that’s a hard one.” Remarkably, he picks himself up and plods over to where she’s leaning and drops himself beside her like a massive, armor-plated pet cat. His groan of effort over the radio betrays his laid back facade. “Pretty sure you think most of the things I say are annoying.”

“There’s different kinds of annoying,” Carolina replies, letting herself get drawn into the conversation and resigning herself to a senseless discussion. “Saying we’re in space when you knew what I meant is a dickish kind of annoying.”

“And the other kinds?”

“Puns.” It is miserably, swelteringly hot, but she’s glad she convinced South to take a nap; she’d probably shoot them both just from having to listen to them talk. “Your jokes are terrible.”

“At least they’re not as bad as Wyoming’s.”

She concedes his point with a tilt of her head. He sighs, heaving a rush of static into her helmet, and Carolina lets her fingertips brush the crown of his helmet.

“For example,” York continues, apparently willing to pursue this new topic, “did I ever tell you about the prostitute who could sing while she gave head?”

Yep, South would definitely shoot them both


	3. Feb 18th, 2016 (Imagineagentyork: 479er)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real ships here, except for the ones in the hanger. OOOOOOOOOoooooooh sorry i'll let myself out.

The few people he passes on his way into the hanger give him a range of looks, running from curious to suspicious to pitying; all clearly telegraphed by the myriad of tiny, insignificant movements that living most of one’s life in a helmet necessitates. York takes them all in stride as he bears his tray of Mysterious Protein with Shredded Mixed Stewed Vegetables and a Suspiciously Firm Banana on the side.

“How’s she doing?” he calls up into the cockpit of a one-winged Pelican. There are still jagged gashes on the hangar floor from the rough landing, even though the ship’s been raised on cables for repairs. A figure emerges, peering down at him from the black-edged hole on the side of the ship.

“Don’t ask stupid questions, York. You’ve still got one good eye, don’t you?”

He holds the tray up as high as he can, blocking his face from view. When he lowers it, Niner is waving him down to the back of the suspended ship.

There’s a short ladder leading to the hatch in the back; the ship’s been powered down for repairs, but Niner has rigged the hatch to open and close with a system of ropes and pulleys. When she lowers it, York can see the narrow cot she’s set up in the middle of the ship’s storage bay, littered with old dishes and a few changes of clothes.

“I can take some of those dishes for you,” he asks as Niner sits down, legs dangling over the edge. It’s weird to see her in civvies - even weirder to see her face - but he knows how she feels. Knows that restless worry, where just being close is all you can do to fix things.

Niner shrugs, peels the banana first and takes a vicious bite off the tip. “We’re still waiting on her parts to come back in. Director doesn’t wanna just let me cannibalize any of the other useless ships collecting space-dust in here. ‘ _Thehre ah pehfectly good ships you can fly, Nainuh,_ ’” and her imitation of the Director’s drawl makes him smother a laugh with the back of his hand. “Bullshit. When your armor gets busted, they don’t just make you wear someone else’s. I mean, can you imagine if you had to wear Maine’s armor?”

“No. That might be cool, though.” Resting one knee on the top of the stepladder, York pulls back his lips and does his best impression of Maine’s snarl. What comes out sounds more like a bag of dice being dropped down a garbage disposal. Niner nearly chokes on her fruit.

“Stick to locks, cyclops,” she finally manages, kicking him lightly in the shoulder with a smile, “and leave the impressions to me.”


	4. Mar 21st, 2016 (Ways to say "I Love You" - Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written on the same day from the same bank of fic memes, so I combined them.

Yorkalina, prompt 26 - Broken, as you clutch the sleeve of my jacket and beg me not to leave. Which is mostly canon, right? (by freshzombiewriter) 

It’s day four.

Contrary to what everyone might think, he hasn’t spent the whole time sitting beside the bed, trying to find a comfortable way to slouch in full armor. He gets up sometimes. Stretches. Paces. Runs lock-picking sims on a portable tablet and gets his time so short not even Delta can complain.  Paces some more. And when he’s not busy doing those things, he does bother to sleep and eat. He just happens to be very busy.

North came and sat with him for a while on days one and three. Wash, then Florida and Wyoming on day two. And it’s the Counselor visiting today, and York is glad he already has his helmet on when the man walks in.

“Hello, Agent New York,” he starts, sitting on the other side of the bed like they’re two civilians having lunch together. Like she’s not even there. “How have you been?”

“Just York, please.” York doesn’t have a fraction of the Counselor’s ease, even on his good days - but he’s used to being the soothing one, the one who acts like everything’s all right. “Glad to have the chance to work while not under fire. Or being sucked into space,” he adds, recklessly, at the end. He might still be a little bitter about that one.

“Are you considering coming back to active duty soon?” The Counselor asks politely. Neutrally.

York fights to keep his hands from reaching forward, wrapping around a limp wrist. “What, am I running out of vacation days already?”

The Counselor laughs, which is when York really knows he’s in trouble. “Of course not. I was simply… wondering.”

“ _You_ were?”

“Not the Director,” he clarifies.

Curiosity bubbles up in the back of his mind, simmering with the same nagging itch Delta tends to inflict when he’s deep in thought. The hook couldn’t be more obvious, but hey. Everyone else always said he had a penchant for pain.

“I’m not leaving without her,” York says, his voice soft and low - the distortion of the helmet radio blurring the edges of his meaning. But the Counselor, for all his uncanny calm, has never missed the obvious.

“Have you tried communicating with her AIs?”

“No.”

The Counselor tilts his head, a smooth practiced movement. “It’s not like you to lie, Agent York.”

“I’m not. I…” Unseen, he licks his lips, scrapes his teeth nervously against them and tastes his own blood in the split flesh. “I asked D. He doesn’t want to talk to them.”

Actually, Delta had tried. But neither had answered, just kept whispering broken syllables between each other, and York hadn’t wanted to push. Too much was at stake for him to try his luck.

“You know it is against regulations for AI to communicate with each other,” the Counselor reminds him, patient and understanding. York bites the tip of his tongue.

“It’s against regulation to use live ammunition in the training room, _sir_ ,” and then because Delta is buzzing in the back of his mind, reminding him that petty shots at someone who has done nothing wrong will get him nowhere. York reigns himself in. “Sometimes results outweigh the rules,” he hazards in apology.

The Counselor studies him for a moment longer, then the shadow of a smile flits across his face.

“Indeed they do.”

He leans back, finally glances down at the figure on the bed between them, and pats her fondly on the shoulder. He reaches a little further and caresses the side of her neck, as if feeling for a pulse.

If she had been awake, she might have snapped his fingers. York, much much later, will fantasize about doing it for her. But for now he only lifts his head, tracking the Counselor’s movements as he stands and leaves.

“Have a good evening, Agent York,” he says, and the door hisses disapproval as it shuts behind him.

York exhales, his shoulders sagging under the relief of it, and he pulls off his helmet to press his fingers against his mouth. They come away tinged with diluted red. The recycled air of the ship is brutally dry. He’ll have to sneak some balm or something from the medical supplies.

But later. Once his sudden tension headache evaporates. For now he pillows his head on his arms as close to hers as he dares.

“You wake up soon, okay?” he reminds her. “I can’t take care of all these guys without you. I’d be terrible at it without you.”

Images of Washington choking after trying to eat What Pretends To Be Lasagna clogged up his helmet flashes through his mind, and he laughs.

“Okay, so I’m terrible even with you, but… I like being terrible with you.” His heart clenches and twists violently and York dares to lean forward and press his forehead to her temple.

“I love you,” he whispers, like he’s done a hundred times before, in a hundred different ways. And just like always, it doesn’t feel like enough.

 

* * *

 

 13, In a letter. Yorkalina, obvs. (by playerprophet)

 

The memo system started as a way to relay information across the ship to specific people, without blaring it over the loudspeaker. There were terminals inside most general areas - the training room, the mess hall, the hanger - as well as one inside the dorms and private sleeping quarters.

Key word here is started.

The problem with a private messaging system is that, while the messages are monitored internally to some degree, they still allow for nearly anyone on the ship to contact anyone else.  Which again, isn’t that bad in concept, but if there is a group alive that’s better at exploiting expensive military technology for insipid purposes, Carolina hasn’t met them yet.

Barely awake, she runs her fingertips over the wall-mounted display, scanning through some of the messages from the general Freelancer communications thread.

**3:26am LittleD** : guess who got back from her mission early  
**3:26am LittleD:** guess who had to drink three cups of norths shitty coffee to be ready in time  
**3:27am BigD:** what’s wrong with my coffee?  
**3:27am Fieldmouse:** everything.  
**3:27am LittleD:** everythi  
**3:28am LittleD:** haha nice connie  
**3:31am BigD:** aren’t you still out with york & alaska, connie?  
**3:32am Fieldmouse:** yeah.  
**3:33am BigD:** how are you on here?  
**3:33am FrostBMP:** were the geek squad dont ask  
**3:33am Fieldmouse:** helmet relays to a secure–  
**3:34am Fieldmouse:** oh nvm what alaska said.  
**3:34am Fieldmouse:** anyway security here is a joke but their system is very, very slow.  
**3:35am FrostBMP:** were still waiting on stuff to upload its so dumb  
**3:35am LittleD:** BLAH BLAH BLAH NERDS  
**3:36am LittleD:** i need to shoot something im so boredddd  
**3:37am FrostBMP:** dont talk to ME abt bored i have to watch a room of corpses while york “hacks”  
**3:38am BigD:** at least he’s doing his job  
**3:38am LittleD:** rofl OWNED  
**3:42am LittleD:** anyway to anyone actually onboard  
**3:42am LittleD:** come to the training room in ten mins if u want an asskicking  
**3:45am MarineBlue:** reggie and i would love to oblidge!  
**3:46am LittleD:** fcuk sorry something came up  
**3:46am MarineBlue:** awww ):

Carolina skims through the rest of the conversation, mentally reminding herself to talk to Connie about exactly how she and Alaska could overcome the encryption onboard the MOI, and finds an unread message specifically to her.

**3:55am GoldenBoy:** its been two hours and this intel is only 16% finished processing, im in hell. anyway we all got bored and did some weird bypassing stuff so im messaging you from all the way out in sunny  S68-C1084. literally sunny. we’re like uncomfortably close to a star out here.  
**3:57am GoldenBoy:** but yeah we’re gonna be back late and you’ll get briefed on this or whatever when you get up, but i wanted to tell you myself. we’re fine. we’ll all get home in one piece.  
**3:58am GoldenBoy:** knock on wood, of course.  
**3:58am GoldenBoy:** sleep well, carolina. love you.

And, as she moved on the the formal mission update, she does see that York’s mission has been delayed. They won’t be back until tonight, at the earliest. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t just a little worried; Carolina likes to keep her friends close, and her enemies in range of her fists.

**6:03am Phoenixfire:** thanks for the update. keep an eye on the rest of your… what was it? geek team? i’ll debrief you properly when you get back.

Surprisingly, her message is read almost as soon as she sends it. Carolina sits up, rubbing her shoulder that’s starting to cramp from resting on her elbow for so long.

**6:04am GoldenBoy:** oooohhh i hope you do

With a roll of her eyes, she deletes the incriminating messages on her end, but leaves the others up. Just in case.

 


	5. Apr 2nd, 2016 (thicker than water, just as cold - 479er)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So @agentyorkdakota and I were talking about how much we love York and Niner being friends and then i was like “ahahah what if instead of ditching immediately after Carolina "died" he went rogue while on a mission with Niner?” and we got upset together so i wrote this. Canon typical violence, pre-Recovery One.

Her ring finger doesn’t work right any more, even after they replaced the delicate, shattered bones with titanium. It’s not the same as a real flesh and bone hand, the genuine touch of a skilled pilot, and Niner finds her flight paths bank a little to the right now if she’s not careful. So she’s always careful now, because she wasn’t careful when she turned her back on York.

Washington is the last out of the ship, following a cluster of disposable little recruits, white-blood-cell soldiers that their new bosses don’t care if they bring back in one piece. Niner closes the back hatch of the Pelican and pulls the ship up to ride the thermals and wait for further orders. She feels unburdened, sharing souls with the ship. Glad to be rid of them for a little while. A counterpoint to the relief she used to feel when the back was loaded with her friends, safe and intact and on their way home.

But that was years ago. Now there are no freelancers left. Just Recovery. As if they’ll ever get back what was really lost down that icy cliff so long ago.

Niner circles the Pelican in the void between the cloud-sea and the ocean below, empty movements in orbit around an imaginary point. Routine. Ordinary. Safe.

And of course that’s when the transmission comes in.

_“Hey, Niner,”_ says a ghost. Or not a ghost, exactly. Is a person still a ghost when they breathe and run and shoot you in the fucking hand but they’re dead to you? Details.

Protocol would say, _stay silent and trace the transmission_. But Niner’s got half a hand of steel because of this ghost, so she opens the communication channel. “Well, well, well. Didn’t think I’d hear from you again. Murderer.”

She expects some wisecrack about how he’s been upgraded from traitor in her mind - the York in her head, in her nightmares as he blows out the knees of the last kid he threw out the back of the plane with two clean shots, always does. But the voice just sighs.

_“I wanted to say I’m sorry. For all of it.”_

“Sorry doesn’t fix shit,” she spits back, and flips on the signal tracer. “You should know that by now.” Nothing can be fixed anymore, not her hand or the AIs or the shattered trust among the agents named for the long-dissolved States. None of it. Why do they even bother trying anyway? 

_“I do. I just… I wanted to say it anyway.”_

Keep him talking, keep him talking. The tracer beeps, a pack of hunting dogs baying for blood. She echoes the sentiment, wishes he was here again. Wishes they were all here again, chatting casually in the back of her ship. If she’d known how much trouble she could have stopped, would she have pulled her own gun and shot half her friends point-blank?

Niner doesn’t think so. Then again, York had. And he was the last person she’d have expected, so maybe her judgement’s as compromised as her flying. “Why?”

Silence. The signal is still there, tying them together like the string of fate. And then, as honest as she’s ever heard him–

_“Because you’re still alive to hear it.”_

And like that, York is gone again. No gunshots this time, no spray of blood whipped away by the wind or painting the control panel crimson. No blaze of glory brighter than the sunlight on his pyrite plates as he lept out the back and left her to try to land an empty ship with a hole in her hand and a different one in her heart. Just silence, and static snow.

 


	6. May 19th, 2016 (Nineteen, slight Lolix)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt (from imagentmi): Felix assuring Locus that he IS a monster – and that Felix likes it.
> 
> I kinda followed this. Pre-chorus, ambiguous merc-ing, written on the fly. TW for, uh. War. So violence and stuff.

They’d never cried before.

Or maybe they had, and he just hadn’t seen it. Locus has killed before - many, many times, it’s his job, of course he’s killed before - but not executions. Not bound, helmetless, soft-bodied individuals who barely looked like they’d hit puberty.

It’s different. Too close in many senses of the word, and the water in the broken sink is still running amber-red when Felix comes in. Then again, the well is shit, so it could just be contaminants and minerals.

“Just got word from the boss that we’re good to go. You take out the POWs?”

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

And it shouldn’t surprise him, shouldn’t be anything new to hear Felix ask in that tone of voice, like he’s a gossipy teenage boy wanting to hear all about third base with Emily Archer had been. He’s even leaning in the doorway to the tiny bathroom in the little house they’ve claimed as a base planet-side, hips at a sharp but sensual angle. Only thing anchoring him to the reality is the stark ivory armor, cruely traced in orange clay as to fit his vanity.

There’s no mirror above the sink, so Locus can’t tell if he’s actually cleaned all the gore off or not. “They’d surrendered. It was–”

He’d tried to just think of it in numbers, like he did on the field with Felix. Mere statistics, even points on a good day. But the count sticks with him, under his skin like a pebble jammed in his boot. Nineteen.

“–a waste of bullets.”

“Eh, we’ll chalk it up as business expenses, maybe fudge the numbers enough to buy something nice from that trading post by the waterfall.” Another lie. Felix doesn’t pay for anything.

But his partner is sharper than Locus cares to remember sometimes, and the way is still blocked when he turns to leave.

“C'mon, man,” his partner presses, “why the long helmet?”

“Out of my way, Felix.”

The way he purrs it is familiar, too. “Make me.”

But he’s not in the mood for anything today, not with nineteen stuck in the back of his throat, between his teeth, bitter every time he swallows.

“It felt wrong.”

“Wrong?” His whole body jerks with surprise - not a flinch, but an adjustment, a recalculation. Then Felix tilts his head. “We’ve killed civvies before. Why’s it wrong now?”

Sometimes, when he’s alone on the top of a cliff face, just the sky above him and the earth below, the sniper rifle solid in his hands, Locus thinks about Why. Why anything. Why everything.

He rarely gets an answer.

“They were frightened children.”

“So?”

Locus shrugs. Felix emotes an exaggerated sigh with the roll of his shoulder, the tilt back of his clay-painted helmet that exposes the line of his throat for a moment. Trust and egotism, together as one. They both know Locus would never kill him.

“Geez, you had me worried something was really wrong. Hang on, I think you still got some amygdala or something on you,” and he flicks something off Locus’ shoulder plate. “There we go. Feel better?”

“Sure.” A false answer is better than none at all. He even allows Felix to sling an arm over his shoulders in an almost-friendly way, one that makes him hunch forward as he bends to accommodate.

“With that extra twenty, looks like you beat my total for this round. I’ll pick up the tab next time we hit up a bar.”

Nineteen. He’d counted nineteen. He breathes in recycled air that still, somehow, smells of blood.

“No, you won’t.”

 


	7. Jun 13th, 2016 (Space Jail - slight Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt (from freshzombiewriter): “I can’t believe I’m sitting in space jail with you of all people.” Yorkalina?

“I can’t believe I’m sitting in space jail with you of all people.” He sounds pleased about it, is the worst thing. “You. Everyone’s favorite. The star of Project Freelancer.”

If it wasn’t a massive risk to take off her helmet, Agent Carolina would be massaging her temples right now.  Instead she just gives her cell-mate a glare through the amber glass of her visor. Agent New York, armor a gilded, gaudy gold just like his personality - down to just his helmet and undersuit, like her, but still infuriatingly calm. It’s their first mission together, but she knows a bit about him. He’s new to Freelancer, but already making a name for himself as the only Agent to actually volunteer.

Aside from herself, of course.

“I’m sure Agent Florida will be along shortly,” she informs him, doing her best to injure him with her words and tone alone. His cocky charm may get her hackles up, but if she shoots him in the knee it’ll only make it harder to break out of the facility.

“I’m not worried,” he says, like an absolute ass, and scoots a little closer. “I’ve been meaning to–”

Carolina knows they’ll get separated for this; that she’ll lose points for attacking her own teammate in a crisis. But she’s not some tart for the boys to use, either as a stepping stone to greatness or some tender plaything. She slams her elbow into New York’s throat and the security guards have to pry her off him when they come.

——

The target had been, to all outside appearances, a cargo freighter. And it was on the outside. But on the inside it’s an exotic animal smuggling vessel, and they’ve no shortage of cages to shove suspicious agents in. She’s inside one stained with blood and clawmarks and the rank odor of predator feces that not even her helmet can totally filter out.

Honestly, they’re lucky their captors weren’t smart enough to strip their prisoners entirely. Too excited by the idea of live, human prisoners to sell to risk removing their helmets in a recently-leaky spaceship. They didn’t bother to disable her short-distance radio, either.

Which is enough to inform her that she’s far enough from New York to be out of his range. Small victories.

A dangerous train of thought, really. Carolina can’t let herself get complacent, not so soon. The mission - infiltration, with their best close-range fighter and the so-called security expert - had only gone downhill after their ‘distraction’ ship had opened fire, and their Pelican had crashed into the freighter with all the grace of its floppy, baggy-beaked namesake.

Not that she can blame anyone other than herself. She’s the senior agent, and she lost her temper when a teammate hit on her. When they get out - because there’s no if, the freighter and all its crew now bear a mark of certain death and it’s only a matter of time - she deserves to be demoted at least. And she’ll take it on the chin. It’s the least she can do in restitution.

The radio in her helmet buzzes to life. “–fo fina, Caaaarolina.”

This time she does take her helmet off, risks be damned, and comes to the door of the cage. There’s only a narrow slit in the door that lets the light and fresh air in, and she has to get up on her tiptoes to peer through. The hallway is empty, filled only with the ambient noises of movement that she realizes are beasts in their cages. 

She shoves on her helmet as the air starts to make her eyes water, shoving her fingers through the slit. 

Immediately, the soft sounds of uneasy animals is replaced with New York’s low singing.

“–days since the living room, I realized it’s all my fault but couldn’t–”

“Down here.”

His silence is sudden, sharp. “Where?”

“One of the predator cages. Do you see my hand?”

“Hang on.” There’s a few puffs of effort, and she tries to visualize what he’s doing. One of the panels in the ceiling further down the hall shifts, then a pair of black-clad legs appears.

Agent New York lands with more grace than she would have expected, and patters down the hall to her door. 

“Were you in the ventilation?” Carolina demands, trying to watch him through the slit in the door as he ducks out of sight.

“Best way to sneak, right?”

“The same ventilation not two hours ago that we tore open when our decoy ship opened fire on the freighter?” 

There’s a muffled click, then the door inches inwards. Carolina steps back just in time for New York to shove it all the way open. “Acceptable risks. That’s still a thing, here, right? Oh god,” and he takes a comical step back, “what is that smell?”

“Nothing you want to consider. Come on. We’ve got to find our armor.”

“Wait.”

She turns on her heel to see him reaching for her - just as fast, he recoils, the movement jerky. Painful.

He makes an aborted noise, then his helmet tilts forward ever so slightly. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she presses, forgetting momentarily that they don’t have time for this.

“For– whatever I did back there. Honestly, I didn’t mean anything, I just wanted to know if–”

There’s a resounding crash at the end of the hall; Carolina’s too well trained to freeze, and instead just sprints back to the ventilation shaft. It’s easy to leap up, grab the edge with her gloved fingers - harder to swallow her pride and wonder if she shouldn’t be apologizing, too.

Later. They’ll have time for it later.

—–

Ironically, the helmets are probably the most high tech thing about their armor suits. The schematic of the freighter they’d been able to glean overlays her surrounds in her HUD; mild motion sickness is worth it to be able to see through walls.

That being said, her joints are starting to ache from the extended crawling - made even worse by the fact that the fabric over her knees and elbows, unlike her palms, lacks any sort of tread. It’s a bit like trying to shuffle silently along a sheet of metal that’s been slicked with butter.

Every once in a while, New York heaves a disgusted noise into his helmet radio, but he’s at least considerate enough to stick with inarticulate bitching. Probably saving his breath, like her.

Finally, she catches a hint of teal through the narrow slots of one of the grates. It’s the work of moments to ease the metal panel out of the way - a ship made for carrying fauna isn’t exactly built to keep infiltration agents out - and Carolina lands silently a couple paces behind a guard.

He hits the ground the same time her teammate does. He sidesteps the body and joins her in sorting through the jumble of brightly-colored armor on the table. 

It’s a two person job to get the chest and arms on - usually, machines help them with the bigger pieces, due to the weight of the polysteel. She refuses to help him buckle the waist-guard in place, and they’re almost finished when a siren goes off.

“Ship sighted,” screams a human voice over the intercom, “they’re coming in hot!”

The freighter rocks with a sudden impact, and one of New York’s gauntlets goes skidding under the furniture. Carolina buckles her last shin-guard in place, thumps her heel on the floor to settle her feet into the boots, and heads for the exit.

“Wait wait wait wait,” her partner babbles, still on his hands and knees, patting the ground. “I gotta get my lucky lighter.”

“Your what?” Two syllables that nearly bend under the weight of the frustration and disbelief Carolina piles onto them.

“Just give me a second. You can do that, right?”

His helmet turns her way, tilting in such a way that suggests a smile, and she wonders if it’s still too late to cripple him. Florida’s just outside, anyway. But instead she heaves a sigh and clotheslines some panicked crew member as he runs down the hall. 

—-

The debriefing wasn’t as bad as she thought it was going to be. The Counselor had already gleaned information that their decoy ship had been compromised, and New York didn’t mention anything about her acting out while they were imprisoned. There’s also a small chance that they dismissed her early because she still absolutely reeked, but Carolina will take what she can get.

Jabbing the soap dispenser in the gym showers a few more fruitless times with the heel of her hand, she makes do and digs her fingernails into her scalp. Strands of long red hair tangle around her fingers, falling out to drip to the floor, coiling like snakes above the drain.

She hears the door open, further down the row of showers, and peers over the top of her stall to see Agent New York, still in his armor. They’d detained him for further questions. He must not have had time to get changed.

“You know, you’re not supposed to shower in your armor,” she says, tone flat and wary. His shoulders fall - or hunch could be more accurate. It’s like he’s trying to shrink, despite standing well over six feet tall in one of the most expensive SPARTAN models ever made.

“I know. I just wanted to– hang on.” 

Everyone says the visors are supposed to be fog resistant, but she knows from experience that’s not the case. So it doesn’t surprise her that New York takes his helmet off, eyes lingering on the amber acrylic as he wipes at condensation. No, the surprise comes when he raises his head, meets her eyes; and she realizes she’s met him before.

“I didn’t join this Project for you,” he says. “I had no idea you were in it, I just saw you training once without your helmet. I’m good with faces. Shit,” and some of the color drains from his face. “You probably don’t remember. We met a while back, at a nightclub called–”

“Errera.” Something else clicks in her mind - the lighter he’d been playing with, the lighter he’d wanted to find. “I’m not that person anymore.”

“I– I know. You’re Agent Carolina, right?” And he says it with weight, a title. A death sentence. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m that guy anymore, either. May he rest in peace.”

Agent New York clears his throat and fishes something out of one of the compartments at his hip.

“I fixed it. Topped it up with lighter fluid too. Should be able to light just fine, now.” He sets it on a bench, where it glitters red and silver. A promise fulfilled too late for either of them to keep. Then he offers her a small smile and vanishes.

Carolina can’t bring herself to move until the water runs cold. One last brisk rinse, and she snatches up the lighter when she leaves.  A flick of her thumb, even wet from the shower, rewards her with a small but steady flame.

“Lucky, huh?” she asks nobody in particular, and closes the lid with a snap.


	8. July 22nd, 2016 ("Your smile isn't as bright..." - Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by anon for an ask meme - “Your smile is not as bright as it used to be.” with Yorkalina

“Your smile is not as bright as it used to be.”

Carolina jerks her head up from where she’d been resting it on her hand, giving her synth-egg a moment’s peace from poking it with a fork. Another tray slides in to neighbor hers, and York settles beside her, despite the conspicuously empty surrounding tables.

Midnight isn’t exactly the most popular dinner hour.

“My smile is fine,” she protests, and shoves the overcooked yet somehow gooey protein around her plate.

“See, now I know something’s up with you. The Carolina I know,” and he takes a bite of toast, watching her out of the corner of his good eye, “wouldn’t admit she smiled at all.”

Carolina thumbs at a spot on her shoulder that’s a little tender from the chafing weight of her armor. It’s not fitting as well as it’s supposed to, and she suspects it’s because she’s losing weight. “I’m fine, York.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says; he probably meant to make it a joke, or a compliment, but it comes out worried. Weighed down with sorrow.

York finishes his toast while she forces down another bite of synth-egg, forcing herself to chew just so she didn’t choke. Carolina has to eat to survive, to keep going, even if sometimes she doesn’t want to. They all do things they don’t like.

He gets up and she assumes it’s to leave, but instead York’s hands settle gently on her shoulders. Fingertips smooth over her collarbones, gentle and maybe a little sensual, and his thumbs dig into taut, knotted muscle.

Carolina’s sigh comes out more like a groan as her head tilts forward. She’s just tired enough to let it happen, just satisfied enough with the day’s work to relax and let York make her feel good.

“There we go, boss,” he murmurs, nudging her ponytail off her neck. “I’ve got you.”

“Do you?” she can’t help but push back in a mumble, letting out another voiced sigh as she pushes her tray aside, leaning forward to give him more access to her back.

She’s rewarded by his knuckles, rocking back and forth gently down either side of her spine; the heels of his hands working loose the nasty spot right under her right shoulder blade; his lips ghosting briefly up her nape.

“Give me a little credit, here,” York teases, “I’ve been told I have very talented hands.”

The offer is there, should she take it. Easy to shrug off. She already knows how it’d play out, too, from so many times past; she’d insult him and he’d laugh, buckle down and just work that little bit harder to impress her.

But she doesn’t want the same-old banter tonight. Not this time.

“Really? I’d like to see you put your money where your mouth is,” she manages, swallowing down a groan halfway through as York moves on to another cluster of too-tense muscle.

It takes him a beat - one she measures in the sudden stillness of his hands, in the way he holds his breath - then his hands slip down her sides, just barely brushing her hips.

“Really?” he asks, completely failing at sounding casually interested. Carolina bites the inside of her lip, one hand securing the light grip he has at her waist as she sits up, her shoulders pressing against his chest. She can feel his heartbeat, strong and steady, pounding through his body. Peace is rare for her these days, so for a minute she just closes her eyes and savors the moment, the security, the comfort of another person's body so close to hers.

Carolina gets up, takes her tray, and walks deliberately slowly across the mess hall. Takes her sweet time scraping synth-egg off her plate, even when York joins her after inhaling the rest of his food in record time. And she doesn’t know if the smile that eventually wins and spreads itself across her face when she’s closing the door to her bedroom is bright, but it warms her from the inside out.

Right now, that’s all she really needs.


	9. Nov. 9th, 2016 - (Upside down kiss, Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was from an ask meme, sent in by ImagentMI

“61…”

“You know,” York says in a rush as he uncurls, arms flopping over his head while he puffs for air, “someone else might assume you like watching me.” He finishes this with a wink and a grin up at her, fingertips nearly dragging along the gym floor. 

“Im spotting you,” Carolina reminds him. “And I can see up your nose. Not much of a view.”

Legs carefully hooked under and over steel bars, York once more reaches for his toes, breath gusting out of him from the effort.  It’s an obscene hour according to the ship’s clock - South claims time is fake in open space - so they’ve got the room to themselves. But the trade-off between peace from other crew members also means no one around in case of injury, so they both have to be on their guard.

“62…”

“Keep telling,” and back down again, his nose almost level with her navel, “yourself that. We both know… I’m _delicious_.”

“64,” she says, “I could always call down someone else.” They know she wouldn’t, and she won’t, but it’s nice to pretend this isn’t his favor to her, giving her something to do on a sleepless night while she waits for her ankle to heal. 

York grunts with effort. Apparently it takes 65 inverted situps to finally get him to shut up. 

66\. 67. 68.  If she tried to return the favors he keeps slipping her, York would just insist she does enough for him anyway. Carolina herself is enough. It’s a hard idea to swallow; being sufficient, just as she is.

“69,” he crows, and stops dead. Both of them are right, honestly. She is here to spot him, she’s having fun, plus the way the sweat is beading across his bare chest is indeed eye candy. And, yes, she _can_ see up his nose.

Carolina bends down and kisses him, suddenly, muffling his surprised exhalation and tasting the faint tang of salt on his lips. His hands snap to her thighs, which isn’t something she disapproves of until York breaks to kiss to chant “shit shit shit i’m slipping grab me.”

“This is why I’m here,” she half-laments, half reminds him, bracing her arms under his shoulders to awkwardly hoist York up the needed two inches to re-lock his legs over the bar. If she smothers him with her breasts a little on the way, well, he deserves it.

“1…”

“Oh, come on!”

 


	10. Nov, 10th, 2016 - (First kiss, Tuckington)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was from an ask meme by a-taller-tale and then guiltypleasuretrashblog did fanart???? of it???? and i'm crying, constantly, with shock and gratitude, so don't forget to check it out
> 
> http://guiltypleasuretrashblog.tumblr.com/post/153016684851/thank-u-ridiculous-tuckington-for-getting-me-out

The first thing they’d synthesized in the combined labs was coffee. Or coffee substitute, to be perfectly accurate. He’s not even sure it’s made from plants. The Rebels called it ‘Coffy’ and the Feds insisted it was 'Ko-fee’ and no one could agree on the right ratio of powder to water, but it was dark-colored and absurdly caffeinated so Wash will take it. For now, at least. Later on down the road he might have to take Grey up on her offers of adrenaline shots.

Unfortunately, the Koffy will apparently eat a hole in your stomach lining if taken without food, so Wash has to stand in line with the rest of the troops in the mess hall and _will_ himself upright. If he wobbles a bit, Tucker and Doc are on either side of him, so there’s a 5 percent chance someone will catch him.

“So apparently Bitters was out late last night, huh, Grif? Who’s the unlucky girl, and is he sharing?” The chatter of tongs on metal pans punctuates Tucker’s purr, and Wash swears he could hear Tucker click out a ' _bow chicka bow wow_ ’ as he picked up a protein link.

Simmons cuts in three spots ahead, voice pinched with disgust. “He got lost on patrol, Tucker.”

“Pssshhh, that’s like excuse number nine on the list. I don’t buy it for a second.”

Wash spoons greasy scrambled egg substitute onto his tray and, after some sluggish contemplation, leaves the last link for Doc.

“No, really lost,” Grif insists. “Like, ended up by the old train station kind of lost. He radio’d in and said he had a broken leg.”

“Did he?”

“Nah, he just wanted someone to drive him home.” A flurry of movement and a sniffle suggests he’s wiping away an exaggerated tear. “I’ve raised him so well.”

Tucker picks up a dehydrated fruit danish and a cup of Koffy from the last station and heads on. Distracted by motion in the back near the kitchens, Wash lingers. Sure enough, they’re bringing out fresh food - there’s even a tray of sticky buns on little, mismatched plates sliding onto the pastry station.

Wash snatches the very first bun and two cups of Koffy before following Tucker back to the officer’s table near the back left corner of the room. It’s identical to all the other tables, but habit and someone’s insistence of it being 'the classic protagonist’s seat’ had labeled it theirs. His body auto-pilots him there, even being so careful as to swing the tray away from Grif when the sim-trooper walked by already hoping to double back for seconds.

“Oh, what the fuck is that?” Tucker whines, setting down his danish with honest, open envy.

Wash sits across from him and sets his tray down. “Sticky bun,” he says, picking it up and preparing to take a bite while it’s still warm. He knows better than to leave food alone around Grif, and the sooner he can get his brain in gear the better.

His teeth snap shut around empty space. He blinks, stares at his fingers, his thumb that’s gleaming faintly with crude icing, and across the table at Tucker. Who has just taken a bite of his sticky bun, the asshole.

“Nice, man,” he mumbles as he chews, “I might have to go ask for one.”

Washington’s thoughts are slow, but his emotions are not, and he skips directly from shock to _murder_. One hand slams on the table as he stands, the other grabs Tucker by the back of the neck, and he smashes their mouths together with all the grace and finesse of two dogs fighting over a tennis ball.

Tucker makes a muffled noise and his lips are soft and a little chapped and taste of sugar; all of which just make Wash more furious. He tilts his head and keeps at it, little licks and nibbles and coaxing motions until Tucker relaxes, lets him inside. Wash digs his fingertips into Tucker’s hair, curls his tongue as deep at it’ll go in Tucker’s mouth, and pulls back with a half-chewed but totally worth it bite of pastry.

“Don’t steal food,” Wash snaps back, his voice exceptionally loud in the stunned silence, and drops back into his seat. The rest of his bun is untouched, and he shoves the whole thing in at once in childish defiance, every inch of his body lit up with _fuck you_.

“Holy shit,” breathes Simmons from Tucker’s left.

On the other side of the hall, a metal pan crashes to the floor with uncanny comedic timing.

It’s only when Wash meets Tucker’s shell-shocked expression that his brain finally kicks back into gear. This, unfortunately happens at the exact same time he has half a sticky bun traveling down his throat, so his only comeback to Tucker’s incredulous, jittery with laughter “well, glad to know you’re a swallower, Wash,” is to splutter.

 


	11. Nov. 10th. 2016 (Finger kisses, Tuckington)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this prompt was sent in by littlefists a.k.a. salt!!!! hello salt!!!! i love you

“You,” Tucker says the moment he is through the med-bays doors, “are a fucking _cockroach_.”

If Wash had the room to talk - or, more accurately, the air and mobility to talk - he would have countered that. As he is currently trying desperately to ignore the gagging itch of tubes stuck down his throat, he just closes his eyes and then flings his most potent glare across the room at the man half-in teal armor in the doorway. The plates have been stripped off from the waist up, leaving him to cross his arms unhindered and glare right back.

Tucker storms the rest of his way into the room, grabs a dozing Caboose who has wadded himself into a wheelchair for a nap, and slings him to the other side of the medbay. Luck steers the chair away from a tower of expensive medical equipment, but it still clips a table on its way. There’s a clatter, a puff of air as Caboose blows through the curtain divider, and a faint, fading snore.

Wash attempts to swallow, but gets hung up on the unwieldy oxygen tubes and instead makes a miserable, rattling wheeze. Tucker’s frown splits down the middle, mouth a hard line but dark eyes softening, widening with concern before narrowing again like a pupil contracting in the light.

“You _motherfucker_ ,” he says, and there’s a weight and a vehemence to it that doesn’t match his earlier playful tone; the one he reclaims as he pulls up the stool Caboose had abandoned hours ago. “They hit you with a rocket, in the _throat_ , and you walked away.”

Wash is careful to articulate an eye roll, then fumbles for the memo tablet Grey had left at his bedside table. In between Caboose’s stories, he’d managed to write out some anticipatory answers. He holds up one now.

_Was trying to cover my team. Got me in the blindside. Tubes are to limit stress on mild tissue damage. Should be out in a couple days._

He takes the time to tap out an extra line. _No BJ jokes._

Tucker snorts and flicks the tablet with his finger. The screen flickers, blue light rippling with the impact like sunlight on the bottom of a swimming pool. Offended, Wash clutches the tablet to his chest, and then types out another message.

_Do you need something?_

“It’s visiting hours, isn’t it? I’m visiting.” Tucker makes a show of stretching, muscles shifting under the close fit of the undersuit. “Got back from the outpost at Sawyer. Heard about your little stunt on the way over from Carolina.”

He’s not sure how to take that obvious stab. Wash is torn between being defensive of his actions, apologetic for the trouble they’ve caused, or proud that he got his team out alive. His gaze flickers again to the curtain, paranoid about leaving Caboose to wake up beside some other hapless patient.

“Anyway,” Tucker continues, “I figured you’d be sick of Caboose by now, or at least that Grey woulda taken the opportunity to remove the stick from your ass, but I guess I’ll just chill here and hide from any more drills.”

Tucker removes the medical tools from a small wheeled cart, drags it between his knees, then crosses his arms. Without any further preamble, he closes his eyes and drops his face into the crook of one elbow, and Wash can almost feel the impact from the weight of it.

 _Sorry,_ he types, then taps Tucker on the forehead. 

He groans and tilts his head, cracking open one eye. Tucker reads the message sideways before his gaze slides, sluggish with weariness, to study Wash’s face. 

He can feel Tucker’s eyes sweeping over him, taking in the wide, stiff bandage around his throat, the oily sheen of the ointment on his chin. Wash’s mouth twists, grimacing around the mouthpiece and under the medical tape.

He nudges Tucker’s forearm with his knuckles to get his attention. _It looks worse than it is. Mostly just smoke damage. Nothing permanent._

“’s not like you died, so,” Tucker mumbles into his arm. “Just glad I’ve got an excuse to– hang on,” and Tucker sits up and grabs Wash’s wrist. “Why are your hands so fucking cold?”

 _Poor circulation and inactivity,_ Wash starts to tap out with his other hand, but then feels the unmistakable press of lips against his knuckles.  His fingers miss, slurring his message as his hand slips on the tablet. _Poor cirskfjksdfk._

Tucker looks up and meets his eyes, something warm and wistful in his dark eyes, bittersweet like chocolate. Something unnamed, but not unknown; an echo, a shadow, a response to the curious pull Wash feels between them sometimes. Are you…?

Behind him, Wash’s heart monitor squawks at the sudden increase in pace. He flops the back of his head against the pillow, coughing around the tubes in his throat as his ears heat up.

“Huh,” Tucker remarks, mouth still pressed against Wash’s fingers before he drops his hand. “I’m gonna go grab some Koffy to drink in front of you, you Darth Vader asshole. Fuck,” he adds, on his way out of the room, “you even worked for the feds!”

By the time Tucker returns, Wash has wracked his brain for the best Star Wars lines, come up with nothing, and instead just flashes Tucker the message _GO GET CABOOSE HE’LL BE UPSET IF HE WAKES UP IN A STRANGE PLACE_ in the largest font he can find.


	12. Nov. 13th, 2016 (Stay Alive, Tuckington)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a prompt this time! Well, not entirely. GPTB was yelling in their tags about how [StrangestQuiet's art](http://strangestquiet.tumblr.com/post/153064185776/stay-alive) needed to have a fic about it and well.
> 
> W E L L.
> 
> Warnings for blood and other war unpleasantries.

It takes Tucker a second to figure out what happened, as he opens his eyes and sees daylight, firelight reflecting off his gauntlets. Which is wrong, because this is a safe house. This is Armonia, their bastion; their base, their home with concrete and steel walls.

There’s a shape at his side, a weight across his shoulders and a dozen angry warnings in his HUD, flashing in time to the sirens blaring in the distance. _Bomb_ , says that narrow little sliver of himself that actually listened during basic, sharp like a shard of mirror. _Get up. Check the area for survivors. Move before it all collapses._

Over his radio, he hears a wet rasp.

Laying on his side as his senses slowly boot back up, Tucker pieces together the last few minutes. He’d been just coming back from a mission, Palomo and a couple other rebel kids on his heels, glory still sweet in their mouths. He’d dismissed his team and fallen into step beside Washington, whose shoulders were tight with tension, armor as grey at the hairs Tucker would swear he has at his temples because _you paranoid bastard, it’s just a coded transmission, it’s not–_

“Tucker.”

The weight on his shoulders slides, fingers catching on his elbow and pulling. Tucker rolls onto unsteady hands and knees; beside him, Washington hisses as he’s jolted, the whole right side of his body rough at the edges and gleaming. Tucker’s hand flies to his own side and his gloves soak with matching blood. At the touch, his own wound demands attention, beats fists on the inside of his skull like the concussion he almost certainly got when he hit the floor, but Washington. _Washington_.

Outside, framed by shattered concrete and torn steel from the tank-sized hole in this tiny safe house, Armonia burns.

Washington reaches out and Tucker clasps his hand, shifting to kneel on one leg as he pulls the ex-Freelancer upright. His broken visor clunks against Tucker’s chest, and Tucker’s free arm wraps around Washington’s shoulders, holding him upright, backing him against the far wall.

“Lemme take a look at you, Wash,” he says, pulling back. In the flickering orange glow from outside, it’s even worse.

He’d never really liked horror movies as a kid; scary movies, sure, that always got the ladies burning their faces in the side of his neck and tugging on his shirt, but the slasher films? Never really his style. So the only real concrete image Tucker has is that Washington looks like that time Church had gotten frustrated at a grapefruit during basic and sunk his fingers into it, torn a hole through the thick skin, juice puddling in the void, pulp still clinging to the edges.

Tucker freezes, hand poised to press over the wound and stop the bleeding, but it’s like the gears in his mind have jammed. All he can think about is being back at home, back in basic, back anywhere that isn’t here where everyone just keeps fucking dying and he can’t do shit to stop it.

“Hey,” says a deep, hoarse voice. Tucker whips his head around, eyes skimming across the dark, smeared blood trail on the concrete and beyond, where the sky is a sickly brown and he can hear the distant patter of gunfire. “Hey,” says the voice again, and then he realizes the voice is Washington.

His hands are shaking and he braces the heels of his hands along the bottom edge of his helmet. Tucker just stares at him until Washington manages to pull it off, a gash along his hairline and blood tricking down his nose, along lips he licks before he twists them into a weak smile.

“Looks bad, doesn’t it?”

Tucker strips his own helmet off before Washington’s hands can reach for him. “You’ve always been an ugly son of a bitch,” he says, hiding behind the last shield left to his name. “Not much of a difference, man.”

“Proximity mine. I don’t know how many more are in the walls, so you shouldn’t go back to the hanger.” Washington swallows and his eyes flutter closed, taut with pain at the edges. He doesn’t reopen them. “Go through the hole in the wall with your infrared on, and get to the roofs if you can. I’ve marked the route I took on my helmet. Pass it on to your team so they know where’s safe to walk.”

Tucker hasn’t seen a lot of horror movies, but he’s seen enough drama to know what’s coming next. The tearful hero insists that their mentor is fine, that they’ll get out of there together, that everything’s going to be fine. But it’s not a movie. Armonia is burning, Washington is bleeding, and no matter what happens Tucker has lost another home.

“Your turn to listen, Wash,” and he cups Washington’s face in both hands like Washington had tried to do to him earlier, “you’ve had worse. I know. I’m pretty sure I had a hand in most of it.”

Washington’s laugh reveals his teeth streaked with blood, and it burbles at the end. He opens his eyes again and Tucker leans in, presses their foreheads together and tries to memorize this moment so he’ll have a better face to the name Agent Washington than a splintered grey and yellow helmet.

One hand grips his forearm with a fraction of the strength Tucker remembers, and the other presses against Tucker’s chest, right above his heart.

“I deserved it. All of it. I just hope I did enough to…”

Washington’s eyes start to close again, head tilting just a fraction to the side, but Tucker pulls back.

“Oh, you are not pulling this shit on me. I am not going to kiss you goodbye in a war zone and let you go gently into that good night, or whatever.” It’s his turn for his hands to shake, to tremble because he wants this, too, but _not like fucking thi_ s. “You’re gonna stay alive, Washington, you hear me? _Stay alive_.”

“You first…” and Washington’s eyes finish closing, head lolling to the side, and his last words are breathed out in a sigh. “Captain Tucker.”


	13. Nov. 14th, 2016 (All over kiss, Grimmons)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was sent in by thehoundunit! I would be way more into Grimmons if I wasn't so hung up on the body horror. Seriously, Sarge, what the FUCK.

“How do I look?”

Grif doesn’t even look up from whatever he’s reading on the tablet. “Like shit.”

Flexing his newly installed roboting fingers, hyper-aware of the chill of metal against raw flesh but still marveling at how responsive his new prosthetic is, Simmons makes a fist. “You’re not looking.”

“I don’t need to see you to know you look like shit, Simmons. It’s a universal constant. You’ve _always_ looked like shit. Trust me. I look like half of you.” He thumbs the seam on his face, where Simmon’s pale skin and his own natural brown is separated by a silvery scar.

Simmons mirrors the action, but feels a coarse ridge between cool metal and warm skin instead. “You should feel lucky. I heard gingers are nearly extinct on Earth now.”

“I didn’t get your fucking hair, Simmons, just your tendency to get a sunburn from fluorescent lights.” Now Grif looks up, his mouth still set in an unimpressed line, and flicks his eyes up and over his teammate.

Simmons stands still, hands hovering uncertainly in the air before he props them on his hips in a miserable approximation of a confident modeling stance. “Well?” he asks, once he’s sure his only answer otherwise is going to be silence.

“Why don’t you twirl around a little so the skirt flares out?”

He thrusts his fist towards Grif, concentrates as hard as he can, and tries to flip Grif off. What he gets is a nasty little spark of pain for his trouble that has him shaking out the arm and rubbing at the raw stump of his shoulder.

This gets a reaction out of Grif; subtle, but Simmons can see the way his eyebrows lift and his grimace soften. “Hurt yourself already?”

Cradling the metal arm in his flesh one, Simmons narrows his eyes. “It needs some calibrations, that’s all.”

“Want me to kiss it better?”

Simmons sits back down on the med-bay bed, slowly testing the movement of his new arm. “Sure,” he says, already tuning him out. “Knock yourself out.”

It’s hard to fight the urge to tear the damn arm off with its cold, cold bolts drilled into his bones and the peculiar pins and needles sensation of the synthetic nerves grafted onto his own; hard to push past the too recent memory of the pain and trouble shoot it anyway. He does it anyway, though. Par for the fucking course to power through the pain and get shit done anyway,

Grif pulls his chair closer and props Simmons’ robotic foot up on his knee as Simmons flexes each finger in turn. The hospital gown Grey put him in for the repairs falls just above the knee, hem sliding up his thigh as Grif pushes his knee this way and that. It’s not that much different than their normal shoving and manhandling of each other, so if Grif seems a little more delicate about it, it’s just because Simmons is out of his armor. And because his nerves are still all over the place after the procedure, he just feels it all more.

He _especially_ feels the firm press of lips against his thigh, right where metal meets man, and his girlish squeal as he nearly falls backwards off the bed could have shattered glass.

“ _What_?” he screeches, the ‘ _fuck_ ’ at the end voiceless from shock. His gown has slipped all the way up to his hipbones and he shoves it back down over his junk, hunching forward to hiss in Grif’s insufferable, placid face. “What are you doing?”

“You told me to kiss it better,” Grif protests, looking more bored than offended, and yet Simmons feels guilty anyway.

“Well, yeah, but,” he splutters, still with one hand between his legs.

“But?”

Simmons opens his mouth, then closes it again; fifteen different insults and putdowns are on the tip of his tongue but none of them want to cooperate with him today. His brain wasn’t hardly touched in today’s modifications, but he would swear he got a wire crossed because the only thing he says, eventually, is:

“My leg is fine, dumbass.”

“Oh.” Apparently satisfied, Grif scoots his chair around to the side, pulls Simmons closer with a fistful of hospital gown, and kisses the raw, tender flesh around the new prosthetic. He does it with a surprising amount of care and focus, like he believes in the truth of this treatment, and Simmons keeps his mouth clamped firmly shut until Grif rolls his chair back away.

“Tell me if your new face starts to hurt,” he says, picking up his tablet again with practiced, paper thin nonchalance. 

 


	14. Dec 6th, 2016 (I think I love you, Tuckington)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by freshzombie writer! "32) I think I'm in love with you and I'm terrified."
> 
> they also bet i couldn't do pining. THINK AGAIN.

There are a lot of things that they’ll teach you in basic. How to hold a gun. How to shoot a target. How to stab a target. How to avoid becoming a target. How to keep up, keep going, keep yourself alive. How to be a part of something greater than you. These are the things they put on the recruitment posters, below images of brave, rugged heroes with one foot on the corpse of an alien and the other on reclaimed soil

The rest of the things, you learn on your own.

You’ll learn that being a part of something is less about working as a team and more about working as a piece. You’ll learn that a good soldier is not a good person, is not a person at all but a weapon in steady hands, no more autonomous or moral than a white blood cell. You’ll learn that there are lines and divides made to chop up all the skills of a person and sort them according to how useful the sum of a self is. You’ll learn that you shouldn’t trust anyone, not above you or below you, because when it really comes down to it the good soldiers will throw all those rules out the window; tear each other apart to try to be whole again. You’ll learn that, sometimes, it’s the traitors and the backstabbers and the cheaters who were the heroes all along, and the ones that fell into line end up with their necks in a noose.

And so you’ll grow hard, and cold, and sharpen yourself like the knife your best friend buried in the back of your leader, the knife that you plunge into the chest of the monster your last ally has become, and you’ll start to learn things all over again from the worst soldiers in the galaxy.

They’ll teach you about stupid things, like pick up lines and mail order cookies. They’ll show you that friendly rivalries can be okay, sometimes, too; that being competitive doesn’t mean being cutthroat, that being a loser doesn’t mean you’ve lost. They’ll teach you how to be a person first and a soldier second, and you’re try damn hard to teach them how to not be a target, to keep up, keep going, and keep themselves alive. They’ll teach you that despite all your efforts you are not cold, you are not hard, and you can still tear up when someone who’s seen the worst you can be cares about you anyway.

You’ll learn that you’ve still got a lot of things to learn, too.

You’ll learn that no matter how hard you fight, no matter how long you work, some people won’t learn. They’ll spit your encouragement back in your face and you’ll try to break them, mold them into something better. They’ll meet your wisdom with spite, your spite with elementary school taunts, and you’ll fight harder than you’ve ever fought before just to keep these terrible soldiers alive because you learned, long ago, the world never stops taking things from you. You’ve learned that you love them, and that you’re terrified.

And in the end you wish they didn’t have to learn how hard life is out here, but they will. They’ll learn sometimes you don’t get an easy way out, or any dramatic last words. They’ll learn that being a good soldier means being a part of something bigger, even if that’s just a stepping stone for something you’ll never live to see. God willing, they’ll learn that they’re good enough as they are, because they were just what you needed.

_“Freckles… Shake.”_


	15. Dec 6th 2016 (Multiple lines, Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a lot of prompts in a short time frame for this one and just. Combined them. 
> 
> imagentmi asked for "49) well this is awkward" and both an anon and ariosedreamer asked for "38) You fainted... straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn't have to go to such extremes."

_The ends justify the means_ is a phrase Agent Carolina lives by. It wasn’t one she’d followed before the Project, but in here it was a tool, a defense, a creed that was easier to swallow than some of the orders that came from up top. It’ll all be alright in the end.

So it’s worth it, it has to be, activating her barely-tested speed unit in the middle of combat. It saved the life of one of her teammates (though she knows, the ones you have to save are hardly worth saving at all in her superior’s eyes) and the initial surge was amazing. And then she had mistimed a turn, been hit in the head so hard her vision whited out, and now she’s waking up on the ground at a pair of gold-armored feet.

“Well, this is awkward…”

On her hands and knees, Carolina pops the seals on her helmet, tilts it up just enough to clear her mouth, and vomits onto the floor. Jury’s out on whether that’s motion sickness or a concussion.

“Who’re you?” she mutters, scraping her tongue against her teeth and spitting saliva and bile out blindly, nose crushed by the mouthguard in her helmet and visor somewhere around her hairline. Thankfully, her radio speakers transmit through the whole helmet, and she can hear his voice resonate through the bones in her skull.

“It’s York. You feeling all right?”

Carolina shakes her head. The movement is enough to make her sway, and she falls against New York’s shins. The voice is familiar, and the name checks out. She’s okay. Probably.

“Fair enough. You _did_ kind of clothesline yourself and fainted straight into my arms.” He pulls off her helmet and she can hear the hum of the fluorescent lights above her - he must have pulled her off into some other wing of the building. “You know,” he adds with a chuckle, “if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”

Carolina vomits again, this time careful to aim away from New York’s boots. He even holds her hair back, gloves rough against the tender, chafed skin of her jawline. It feels like the start of some terrible rom-com, except instead of being in a bar or her own bathroom after a rough break-up they’re in the headquarters of a woman convicted of breaking five of the nine Geneva conventions.

“Okay, just. Hang on.” She swats away his hands when he tries to coax her to sit against the wall, opting to stand and glare at his visor for all of three seconds before she’s closing her eyes as the world spins. Carolina’s so tired. 

“I have a concussion,” she informs him, her voice thin and hollow without the filter of her helmet radio. New York says something that sounds condescending, and then when she opens her eyes again there’s patches missing in her vision and he is gone. Carolina’s legs tremble under her, and she’s suddenly aware of how much they burn with the strain she’d put them through.

But, god, she’d felt like a badass. Cleared a room of private security, without a single bullet fired. It had been worth it, so long as she gets out of it alive.

What she can see of her surroundings, despite the clouds eating away at the edges of her vision, looks like an ordinary office. There’s even what looks like a fake plant in the corner, and some irrational part of is her insisting she reach out and touch it when the door slams open.

 _You’re dead,_ Carolina thinks or herself as she can’t raise up her gun in time. _Useless to the Project._ But it’s just New York, back with a water bottle and a bit of a limp, and now she’s remembering him a bit more. 

“Here. Even if you can’t swallow, it’ll get the taste out. Extraction’s at the fire escape two floors up. It’s probably gonna be a hook on a cable, but at least the path’s clear.”

“Florida’s okay?” she asks.

“Florida cleared it, actually. You did good, Carolina.” He holds out an arm - for support, for a pat on her shoulder, for something. Carolina takes a sip from the bottle, dumps the rest over her throbbing head, and shoves the empty bottle in his grasp.

“Thanks, Agent New York. And…” she adds, gun in one hand, the other on the doorknob, “sorry about your boots.”


	16. Jan 13th, 2017 (Drunk accidental kiss, Tuckington)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on [art by GPTB](https://lostlegendaerie.tumblr.com/post/155808994528/tuckerfuckingdidit-guiltypleasuretrashblog#Notes) and written with encouragement? permission? from the author? one or both of the two. oh, well.

See, what was really bad about the whole thing was that it had been Carolina’s idea. Carolina, as in _‘top agent of Project Freelancer’_ , as in  _‘probably hasn’t had more than two hours of consecutive fun since the AI Delta was created,’_ had actually spearheaded Operation: Booze. Maybe part of it was born because they needed to recycle all those glass bottles for the war effort, but when you get down to it, Agent Carolina still suggested half the base get drunk.

She, of course, sets herself up as part of the sober half who will get to pound down the rest of the beer tomorrow, which leaves Washington feeling somewhat in charge of all the drunk kids around him. Some of whom he worries aren’t technically the legal age but if he says anything now, he might as well print out a label that says ‘I HAVEN’T LAUGHED IN THREE YEARS’ and stick it on his forehead.

(which isn’t true. he’s laughed a couple times since then, just. Very softly, so no one could hear him.)

(Wash has a lot of emotions softly where people can’t hear him)

Yes, he said forehead. Washington is in civvies, which had again been Carolina’s idea. “Get them out of uniform,” she’d said. “Let them forget who started on what side.” She’s right, as usual, but he feels uncomfortable. More cold than exposed, but that’s still simmering in the back of his mind.

Leaning against a tower of boxes against the wall of the designated party hanger, Wash shoves one hand in the massive middle pocket of his hoodie and uses the other to take a sip of some of Donut’s punch. He doesn’t know where the sim-trooper found ingredients that tasted this good, but he is trying very, very hard not to care and just enjoy himself. It’s working. Sort of.

“Damn, Wash, you got a can in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Tucker’s shoulder bumps into his, it’s owner dressed in a slightly too-small white v-neck shirt. Most of the soldiers are dressed in clothes not their own, highlighting how unprepared Chorus was for a civil war that lasted this long.

Wash pulls his fist out of his pocket and relaxes it, flashing Tucker a view of his empty palm. Tucker clicks his tongue.

“Is that Donut’s punch? Leave it to him to make something fruity. Lucky for you I brought a six pack,” he says, and sets the half dozen bottles down on the boxes by Washington’s elbow.

“Tucker, do you realize what I’m leaning on?” For emphasis, Wash taps the label on the crate with his boot. ‘ _Baldwin’s Brewery_ ’ reads the faded label, along with what might have once been a stylized icon of a lizard.

“Yeah, but this is good stuff from the officer’s stash.”

That gets his attention. “Officer’s stash? How did I not know about this? I’m an officer.”

“Did I say officer? I meant mercenary.” Tucker rotates the pack so Wash can make out the handwritten label.

_PROPERTY OF FELIX. DRINK THIS AND DIE. (i’m not kidding)_

“You know, part of me wants to just pour these out of the ground,” Wash says, once the initial surge of rage ebs and he’s able to speak again. The cup in his hand creaks, one or two of the dents popping back out, so he chugs the rest. “Really make him mad.”

“Nah, we drink it all, fill up the bottles with piss and recap them. Then, worst case, he tries to take a victory chug over our dead bodies.” Tucker twists off the seal, which seems to sigh in satisfaction, and he takes a careful sniff. “Ooooh. That’s good.”

Wash takes a second to try to clear his mouth of the taste of punch, then selects a bottle for his own. Tucker practically moans around his own as Wash takes a sip. It’s strong, and dark, with almost a liquorice aftertaste. It’s different, but good.

“Are they all the same?” Tucker asks, in the middle of yanking Washington’s bottle and taking a sip. “Oh my god. They aren’t. These have gotta be like earth imports. Or micro brews.”

The amount of possibility held in the unmarked amber bottles seems to hit them both at the same time, in perfect sync with the first obnoxious notes of dance music that start to play over the hanger’s intercom system.

“We gotta pace ourselves,” breathes Washington, and Tucker relaxes.

“Oh, thank god.” Leaning on the box that’s become an impromptu table, he gets into Washington’s personal space and wiggles his eyebrows. “I was afraid you were gonna say we gotta share.”

In response, Washington pulls out the folded knife he’d been thumbing inside his hoodie and neatly slices the taped box top between them. Pulling out two pairs of the overstocked bottles, he sets them on the ersatz table and slips the homebrews back into the box.

“We are _officers_ ,” he says, “and this is _our_ stash.”

 

* * *

 

Taking charge of one of the beer sources was an excellent idea. It kept Washington off the dance floor, off to the side where he could at least kind of have a conversation, and it let him monitor who was drinking how much.

At least it did at first. Several beers and cups of punch later, Washington barely remembers to check what’s on the label of the beer he hands out every time some thirsty soldier asks for more.

The presence of Tucker at his side has been comforting, like the weight of a weapon on his hip. Sure, he’s wandered throughout the hanger over the course of the evening - a few dances here and there, and one long drawn out mission where Washington tracked him tracking Grif and Simmons around the room, constantly ambushing one and clearly talking about the other - but he always comes back to Washington. Like he has now, grinning from ear to ear in a way that makes Washington wonder how many of those smiles he’s missed from under the helmet.

He _might_ be a little more drunk than he intended.

“I will get him to kiss,” Tucker declares, and Washington frowns.

“Get who to kiss?”

“Grif and Simmons. I’m gonna.” He takes another sip of punch and Washington corrects the phrase in his mind. Get _them_ to kiss. Okay. Much better.

“Don’t force it. The best kinds just happen naturally. Like–” he stops, already halfway through slinging an arm around Tucker’s shoulder since the box is nearly empty and won’t support his weight any more. “Um.”

Several feet away, two soldiers are clearly bickering, with a couple pokes and prods for good measure. Washington is getting ready to step between them when Tucker blocks him with an elbow.

“Give it a sec, man. I think it’s okay.”

Sure enough, as they watch, one of the soldiers strips off his shirt and offers it to the there. There’s a few wolf whistles, than the second takes off his as well, and they struggle into the other’s shirts, which fit each other them much better.

“Hah!” Tucker says, obnoxious as always in his triumph, and for the life of him he doesn’t know why but Washington starts laughing. Little giggles at first, ones that start in his bitten lips and his shoulder, creeping down his arms. They multiply, a few jumping off to Tucker, who turns to look at him with a confused smile.

“Dude, what?”

“I don’t know, I’m drunk,” Wash says, the laughter hitting his lungs. He tries to drown them with sips of some apple-flavored beer from Felix’s stash, but he can’t stop them. 

At least Tucker is laughing along. “Oh my god, you really are drunk.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Damn. Wait up, man, I wanna get on your level,” and Tucker wraps his fingers around Washington’s beer and tries to pull it away. Washington can’t get his hands to let go, so instead he just helps Tucker tip the bottle against his lips, taking a good couple pulls before reclaiming the beer as his own. He can taste a bit of Donut’s punch when he follows up with a sip of his own.

They pass a couple more minutes in silence, with Tucker’s shoulder under Washington’s hand, stable and comforting like sun-warmed stone, leaning together. Trying to be helpful, Washington catches a glimpse of Simmons from across the room and gestures with his beer bottle.

“There he goes,” he says, tilting his head towards Tucker’s. Their cheeks smoosh together, and he feels more than hears Tucker’s laugh.

“What?”

“I said,” Washington starts, turning his head even more but too tired to pull away to do so, instead just pressing his face even more against Tucker’s. He’s just so warm and there, and space is cold and Chorus is cold, and it’s the most obvious thing in the world to kiss Tucker so he does.

He forgets to close his eyes, too drunk to get all the steps right, and the world is a dimly lit muddied blur beyond Tucker’s deep brown cheek. And he also forgets to, you know, actually have ever said anything about being interested in Tucker romantically so after a couple soft seconds of gentle kissing he jerks himself away, mortified.

Washington feels hot all over, hot enough he kind of wants to pull his hoodie off, maybe his shirt too, maybe even more clothes if he lets himself think about it but he doesn’t. No one else seemed to notice, either, so Washington tries to rinse away the taste of Tucker on his lips with another beer, but they’ve been swapping drinks so much all evening that everything tastes like Tucker, feels like him, insidiously intoxicating. He hadn’t even known he’d wanted Tucker until that moment, and then he had. Now he does.

God, he is. Really drunk, isn’t he?

Tucker clears his throat. Washington fumbles through the box to find the last of Felix’s brew and passes it over, avoiding eye contact the whole time. The pop, the click of the glass bottle against Tucker’s teeth, the intake of breath that he eventually lets out. All are things that happen softly, so Wash pretends not to hear.

“You like root beer?”

“Yeah?”

Tucker passes him the bottle back, without looking. Washington wipes off the rim and takes a sip, barely tastes the sweet notes of vanilla in the back of his throat. 

“Good.”

“Good,” Tucker echoes, and steps away to lean on the other side of the nearly-empty box.


	17. Jan 31st 2017 ("Did you think I forgot?" Wash & Carolina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was sent in by wordsysayswords!

It’s a difficult adjustment to make, all things considered; a bit like moving back in with your parents after a year in college, except you thought your parents were dead and Washington never really went to a standard college, so–

Anyway, the point is, working for - not so much with, not really - Carolina again after getting into the rhythm of being more or less head of Blue Team isn’t easy. She’d come back angrier than ever, and if he was honest his order-taking muscles have gone a little stiff with years of disuse.

Seeing her again reminds him how much he’s changing since he joined up with the sim-troopers, too, which makes it that much harder to be the Agent Washington she remembers.

“Talk me through their skillsets, again?” she asks, as they’re spending another late night pouring over the plans of the facility where Epsilon is stored. 

“What skillsets?”

The visor on her helmet has always added to her intimidating facade, sharpening her glare down to a narrow point. He’d forgotten how much it burns.

“Well, Tucker is brighter than he pretends to be a lot of the time, pretty good with most weapons, especially DMRs. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and some alien sword, so he should be all right. I wouldn’t have him head up a team on his own just yet, but–”

Wash realizes that he’s rambling and does his best to move along. “Caboose has impressive physical strength but can be hard to focus, and I’m a little less confident about my knowledge of the Reds, since they’re not on my team, but–”

“Teams,” Carolina says, her helmet angled downward at the schematics, then she rolls her head and steps out of the room. Washington crosses his arms and tries not to sulk. She’s been gone for a while. So has he. It makes sense that they’d have some difficulty communicating now. God, if onl York was here to act as a–

Wait. 

Washington starts checking the compartments of his armor; bullets check, lockpicking tools check, weapon cleaning materials check. And something else, too, something he’d found still loosely held in a long-limp grasp.

The old Agent Washington would never have followed Carolina after she left to cool down; he’d be too mired in self doubt to think he could do anything to help. And maybe he can’t help, but maybe someone else can.

“Carolina?”

She’s pacing outside, and her attention snaps to him, crushing him like a bear trap. “What?”

“Here. You should probably have this.”

The faint starlight catches the ruby shine of the lighter in his palm, making it gleam like fresh blood. Carolina goes rigid.

“I got the recovery beacon for Delta, back in the day. I found this on the–” His fingers curl around it, suddenly unsure if he can say this right. “I don’t know if it means anything to you, but it meant something to him. And… I know you did, too.”

Carolina is quiet. Washington starts to retract his hand but she stops it, gripping his wrist with steel fingers at first and then gentle, reverent as she takes the lighter.

“Thank you,” she says, and he can hear a thickness in her voice like the words are hurting her to say. “We’ll make the Director pay for what he did to them. To us.”

“Did you think I forgot?” And Washington taps the back of his head bitterly. “I may be a Blue now, but we’re still ex-Freelancers. I’m with you. I promise.”

_Even if I’m not the person you remember._


	18. Feb 1st 2017 ("Just a cut," Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's just a cut, really" sent in my imagentmi!

The new kid, Connecticut, is surprisingly good. Quiet, small, but sharp on the uptake and good at taking infiltration seriously. Most of these are qualities that Agent “my armor is gold and my jokes are old” York lacks, which means that Carolina has had to spend way too much of this mission fielding Connecticut’s ‘concerns’ through the private channel as the two of them work on getting up to the storeroom through the main entrance while Carolina wiggles her way through ducts.

 _‘He’s singing,’_ is the latest message to pop up on the inside of her visor.

_‘What kind of song?’_

In reply, Connecticut sends back an audio clip of York singing a fairly jaunty song about colors.

 _‘That’s a good sign._ ’ She really doesn’t want to get into how she can read her friend and teammate’s mood by his music choices, but she can tell enough that he’s pleased with how the mission is going. If he’s relaxed enough to be singing to himself, they’ll probably beat her there.

Which is why she increases her pace. Just as well, too, since less than five minutes later Carolina gets a warning that both of their vitals are spiking. Elevated heart rate, increased adrenaline; the ping that Connecticut sends her confirms that they’re in a combat situation.

“I’m on my way,” Carolina sends them both.

 _“It’s all right,”_ York assures her, his breathing punctuated by what sounds like blows. _“We can handle this, just–”_

His next word slurs into something sharp and agonized, one that cuts off as he kills his audio feed. Carolina almost freezes from indecision, then forces herself forward. If he’s in trouble, she’s too far away to save him now, and storming the building to get to their last location will only bring more trouble.

“Agent Connecticut, status?”

A ping - still alive, then, just too busy. A ping from York as well, then a welcome voice forty seconds later.

_“Sorry about that. Son of a bitch had a knife. Did not expect that. Back on our way.”_

“Is Connecticut okay?”

 _“I’m fine,_ ” the new recruit says, speaking for herself. _“Sorry, I could have brought my own knives but I wasn’t sure if I should–”_

“If you’re good with a weapon, always bring it. Even if it’s not given to you at the start of a mission.” Carolina double checks her location, then kicks out the  grill of the ducts and double-taps two guards with silenced headshots from her pistol. “I’m here.”

 _“Be there in, uh, fifteen? Fourteen,”_ York amends.

A little bit later, she gets another message from Connecticut. _‘He’s singing again.’_

_‘Just deal with it.’_

She’s collected the data they need by the time both brown-tinted agents arrive at the information room. As they get in range of her short-range radio, Carolina picks up the low tones of York’s absent humming something low and soothing. Immediately, she storms over to his side and grabs him by the arms.

“Where is it?”

“Hey there, Carolina,” York says, all soft and wildly unprofessional for setting an example to a new recruit, “miss me that much?”

“Connecticut, call in the extraction,” and she bends York’s arms at the wrists, then the elbows, listening intently. Once she starts to raise his arms about his head, however, he sucks in a sharp breath. Bingo.

“It’s just a scratch, really,” he says, and whatever other excuse he would have offered is lost in the gasp as she digs her thumb into the meat of his neck. A stab wound, invisible in the dark undersuit, soaks the pad of her glove up to the knuckle.

Carolina marks an X on the armor at his shoulder with his blood, then crosses her arms to glare at him. “You’re getting that looked at on the shuttle back. No excuses.” 

When she turns back, Connecticut is watching them, inscrutable under her helmet. Explaining would sound like an excuse, so Carolina turns her back on them both and goes back to reviewing their escape plan. 


	19. Feb 1st 2017 ("I'll leave you alone," Tuckington)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was sent in by anon! Thank you, anon!
> 
> (Also note: if tucker's moods seem all over the place, that's intentional since he's got all of the epsilon fragments rolling around in his head in this fic)

“Did you know?”

Washington turns to see Tucker framed in the doorways, his hands curled into fists. The new armor he wears makes Washington feel automatically uneasy, to see the domed helmet of his friend Maine and his monstrous parter the Meta on someone else’s head. He dismisses the pair of foot soldiers he’d been lecturing and starts to walk off the field, slowly, expecting Tucker to follow.

“Did I know what?” he asks, though he has his suspicions.

“Epsilon’s plan to kill himself. Again.” Tucker is keeping up, his voice low and aimed to injure. “Did you know?”

“I didn’t,” he says.

“Would you have told me if he had?”

That one isn’t as easy to answer. And it doesn’t get any easier when Tucker grabs his shoulder and spins him around.

“I said,” and even though Washington knows that Tucker is’t really the Meta, he can clearly hear Omega through his voice, “would you have fucking told me?”

Off guard, Washington reverts to regulations. “If it was important, I–”

Tucker shoves him away and storms off; alarms are starting to go off in Washington’s brain, echos and parallels of the corrupting influence of the original AIs, and he all but jobs to catch up.

“Tucker, you know I’d never–”

“No, I don’t,” and his only warning is the buzz of the sword but its enough to jump back before he loses a limb. “I don’t know fuck all about what to expect from you anymore. Or anyone. You stupid,” Tucker’s voice cracks, and he spins to slash at the nearest object, a set of old Warthog tires that squeal and sizzle under the plasma blade, “fucking Freelancer pieces of shit. Both of you. All of you.”

“All right,” Washington says slowly, completely lost, “I’ll leave you alone for right now. I’ll come back a little later and we can–”

“No you won’t.”

Tucker plunges his blade one last time, as deep as he can, into the heap of molten rubber and kills the blade. His shoulders are shaking, and Washington sees the flash of multicolored AI hover at the back of his head; purple, then yellow and pale cyan. 

“You’ll never come back. I– we– nobody every comes back to Blue Team once they leave. We’re not worth it to them.”

“Church,” Washington breathes in the silence. “You’re not upset about Epsilon. You’re upset about losing Church.”

“Three times, man,” he says; fragile and fallible and yet still so goddamn strong. “Three times, he had a choice, and never once has he picked us.”

Washington approaches Tucker with caution, laying a hand gently on his shoulder and coaxing him away from the melting tires. “Have you let Grey check you out, yet?”

“Not that I know of, but who could resist these buns and thighs, huh?” It’s the first he’s sounded like himself since the end of the Hargrove mission, and Washington finds their fingers laced together as they walk. He can’t really say he doesn’t like it, either.

“Let’s go see how she’s doing, okay?”

“Okay, Washington,” Tucker says, and squeezes his hand.


	20. Feb 1st 2017 ("How about you make me?" Tuckington)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Littlefists asked for this one, and I decided to continue the Koffy Universe? which is just. a strange little connection of oneshots. anyway.

“You,” Washington says, putting every possible amount of weight and force into three precious syllables at 0500 hours, “motherfucker.”

Tucker takes a sip from one of the four cups of Koffy surrounding his little fortress of half a dozen sticky buns. “Hey, you snooze you lose,”

Washington wants to remind him that this is a small, private officers meeting and he should be at least a little professional, but he is tired and mad and Tucker took all of the fucking Koffy for himself.

“Give,” he says, and points at one of the cups.

“How about,” Tucker says, all slow and deliberate as he takes a delicate nibble off the edge of his third sticky bun - his third! He isn’t even eating one he’s just taking little claiming bites off of each, the monster - “you make me?”

“Fuck–”

“That’s one way to do it.”

“–you.”

Washington reaches for a cup; Tucker bats his hand away. Washington glares and tries again; Tucker, as well, repeats his gesture. “You gotta make a deal with me. You know. Exchange same goods for–”

Washington tunes out the rest, sleepy brain making the obvious connection. He stands, walks over, grabs Tucker on either side of the face and kisses him with all of the coordination and passion he can dredge up at such a godawful hour. Which isn’t that much, but it is hopefully worth the cup of Koffy that Washington can taste as Tucker leans into the kiss.

They break apart for breath after an unknown amount of time, but still close enough that Washington can feel Tucker’s nervous laugh and softly whispered “dude, I was just gonna try to get you to swap shifts training the kids with me.”

His sleepy, smoldering contentment is replaced all at once with electric, ice-cold horror. Washington yanks himself backwards as hard as he can, too late registering the weight across his shoulders as Tucker’s hands on the back of his neck; they end up on the ground in tangled heap, with Washington’s hands trying to scramble backwards but his legs very securely tangled with Tucker’s.

“If you want me to kiss you so badly,” Tucker says, on his hands and knees with his nose nearly bumping Washington’s, “you could just ask.”

The air feels charged between them, and there’s so many things Washington wants to say all crowding in the back of his throat. He swallows, and mutters, “stop stealing shit, first.”

“What? Like this?” Another kiss, one soft and sweet and brief that makes Washington chase his mouth.

“Just a couple more, then Koffy,” Washington says, holding himself up with one arm while the other ensures Tucker doesn’t escape. “Then the meeting. Then more, later.”

“All right.”

And of course that’s when the door opens, admitting Simmons, who freezes in the doorway with a squawk. “Fuck!” He takes a stumbling step forward, then Grif is peering over his shoulder.

“Oh, you _whores_ ,” the sim-trooper laments, as Washington shoves Tucker off him with a little too much force, “that’s where all the sticky buns went.”


	21. Feb 2nd (Multiple prompts, Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> queerweiss asked for "Actually... I just miss you." and freshzombiewriter asked for "Sometimes I wish you died" so! Slight AU with carolina as the Meta!

She’d taken the first deal the UNSC had given her, and even if she has nightmares about it for the rest of her life, Carolina refuses to regret it. Regret was what killed the Project, tore her family apart. She will not look back even for a moment.

But the blinders she’s firmly affixed to her vision are starting to loosen. She’s starting to see all the signs of corruption all over again, whenever her head is cleared of the AI, and she just– wishes she didn’t. She didn’t run the first time, not like so many of the other Freelancer agents did, and she doesn’t want to run now.

They’ve given her an apartment, even, just a little separate from the Lahari base. Close enough to feel secure, but far enough to feel a sense of peace. She just wishes it wasn’t so damn close to the sea cliff.

Carolina wonders if that bit was intentional.

She’s lying in bed, reading the most recent reports - South is still refusing to talk on Texas’s location, and Gamma helps her pretend not to know what they’ll do to her for it - when an offer for a communication channel opens up.

_Callsign: Errera_

She freezes.

They’ve been tailing York for months; he’s priority number two, just behind Texas, and her grip almost cracks the screen with rage. There’s no time to take the communicator to the lab to have the signal traced; no time for anything at all. Without further thought, she opens the channel.

“Hello, York,” she says, and Sigma pours in enough venom for two long, long years as Charon’s personal attack dog. “Nice to hear from you again.”

A pause. A sigh, soft as the sea breeze.  _“You’ve got South. Any chance you’ll swap her for me?”_

“Not my call to make. And even with it was, you think I’d cut you a deal after what you did?”

_“Yeah. I did.”_

Her rage is like the ocean, crashing itself against the rocks; in the ebb something deep in her heart twists in agony. Just as fast, that feeling fades too, and she’s back to burning, the AI in her brain sharpening her words.

“Well, I won’t. You’ve put yourself in danger for nothing.”

 _“So, no different than that last year in the Project, huh.”_ There’s not a trace of humor in his voice - its thin and tight, humming with tension like a wire. 

Another long pause. She can’t bring herself to hang up, and she knows she should. “Anything else you wanted to say?”

 _“Yeah. Yeah, I–”_ Another pause, and this time she thinks she hears a gull crying in the background. Sitting up, she starts to pull on her boots. No time for power armor, just a jacket and a pistol. She’s done more with less.  _“Actually… I just miss you.”_

Ebb, and flow. “Don’t lie to me.”

_“I’m not lying.”_

Carolina rubs the heel of her hand against her forehead, trying to smooth out the painful furrows forming there as a half dozen voices all scream for her attention. It’s so much. 

She’s not sure when she’s addressing when she spits, her head cradled in her hands, “sometimes I– I wish you’d died.”

_“Me, too. I shouldn’t have left you. Not like that.”_

“Stop. Please, just, stop.” She sinks her fingernails into the back of her neck and pulls. Finally, silence.

The call has ended. There’s not a trace of it on her data pad. Not so much as a wireless signal. Did she dream it? Is she back in the sarcophagus?  It’s as though she can feel her own mind crumbling in her hands, falling like sand through her fingers.

Carolina lays back down on the bed, closes her eyes, and prays that just this once, she’ll dream of nothing at all.


	22. Mar 28th, 2017 (Stuck, Yorkalina)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First line prompt, sent in by imagentmi: “How exactly did you manage to get stuck in there?”

“How _exactly_ did you manage to get stuck in there?” 

York has activated his gravity boots and is standing upside above her, carefully wedging a long, thin piece of scrap metal between Carolina’s armor and the crumpled mess of the blast door.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have crashed into the damn thing,” she hisses. They were supposed to be infiltrating this ship, but something had gone wrong with the speed unit. All in the space of four seconds - which she knows will be poured over in great detail as soon as they get back to the MOI - Carolina had gone from leading the mission to slamming into the front door like the world’s worst deliveryman. “And why are you going at it from that angle?”

“Because if he goes at it from the ground and it slips,” Wyoming pipes in from the other side of the compound, still clambering up to a lookout spot, “it’ll decapitate you.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” York adds. “I’ll be gentle.”

Arms pinned to her sides, suspended halfway off the ground with one shoulder punching through the seam of the blast door, Carolina is armed only with a vicious glare. She concentrates as much vitriol into her gaze and aims it at him.

Motion under her distracts her, and Carolina kicks out. From the feel of it (and the sound, a yelp followed by a furious curse), she connected perfectly with South’s ass. “Are you trying to crawl under me?”

“Well I was, until you decided to be a c–”

Whatever Carolina was is cut off by the sound of Wyoming’s sniper round echoing through their corner of the compound. “Hostiles,” he adds, a little late.

Above her, York squares his hands on the lever and starts to push. Behind her, somewhere, South loads her gun and with any luck is there to cover the pair of them.

“Get me out, get me out, get me out,” she chants, wincing at the pressure in her chest as the lever crushes against her breastplate. It shifts, dangerously close to stabbing her in the armpit, and the feeling of metal scraping against the aqua-tinted alloy vibrates through her body like her ribs are tuning forks.

“Now you know how it feels,” he hisses, changing the angle and pressing harder, “to pick a lock in a firefight.”

“Pick faster, then.” Carolina pops free, falling on her knees beside the buckled steel wall, and fingers the gouges on her armor.  York hits the ground a moment later with considerably better grace, and even offers her a hand up.

She takes it, shakes out the cramped feeling in her arms from lack of circulation, and draws her pistol.

“Okay, everyone. Time for Plan B.”


	23. Mar 28th, 2017 (Breakfast, Grimmons)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First lines prompt sent in by madqueenalana: “In my defense, I thought this would go a lot more smoothly.”

“In my defense, I thought this would go a _lot_ more smoothly.” 

Simmons turns to stare at Grif as slowly as possible; partly to be dramatic, and partly because he was having trouble tearing his eyes off of the yards and yards of raw meat laid out on the runway. 

“Like, I used cooking oil and everything.”

“What,” starts Simmons, with the trepidation of a man who does not want to know the answer and the horror of one who already knows it, “was your plan, exactly?”

“Breakfast,” Grif says, gesturing at the food concealing in the Blood Gulch sun. “But all at once instead of always having to go back for seconds”

“Cooked on–”

“The asphalt. Look, you know how hot it gets on the roof. I figured, hey, today’s gonna be sunny, why not grill out?”

They hear the sound of running feet too late to act upon it; all they can do is stand side by side in horror as Donut comes sprinting up and flings himself on the ground pork, raw eggs and batter, skidding down the runway.

“Nothing better than a nice slippery sausage to ride on first thing in the morning,” he squeals as he shoots past them, eventually running out of breakfast food and tumbling across the asphalt. “Lopez, you gotta try this!”

Slowly, Simmons turns and clamps his hands on either side of Grif’s helmet. For the first time in weeks, Grif seems disturbed by this. Especially when their visors nearly touch, and Simmons takes in a deep breath.

And releases it in the loudest, shrillest scream he has made since he sprained his wrist in women’s volleyball.


End file.
